The Iraq war of 2003 was the worst foreign policy blunder in the American history. But we can learn from the strategic mistakes of George W. Bush's administration and hopefully avoid making such monumental errors in the future.
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars appears to be headed toward about $4-$5 trillion in total expenditures once all is said and done, if we include to the $1.41 trillion spent to date the equivalent interest payments on the massive amounts borrowed and supplemented to the deficit by the Bush administration, and the 50-60 years of Afghan/Iraq's 2.8 million veterans reaching a projected 40% permanent disability levels.
This is slightly higher than the cost range for World War II and a very far cry from the $4-$5 billion incurred by the Afghan field operations in Oct-Dec 2001. If the Bush administration had not passed on the opportunities presented to eliminate Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri just a few months after September 11, the war would had been brought to swift conclusion with the decimation of al-Qaeda.
This fact becomes more inexcusable considering the little cost of ordering commercial airline cockpit doors to be locked in flight, which would cost much less than ordering private jet flights for a select few cabinet officials because of the 'enhanced threat assessment involving airplanes' the summer of 2001. Instead, the Bush administration chose to ignore the multiple of warnings that came from Counter-terrorist Departments, CIA, FBI and the intelligence of other countries. Yet, select government officials would fly with only private jets!
Such a little step of applying commercial airline cockpit doors - appropriate in light of the circumstances - would have saved the lives of the nearly 3,000 killed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A serious investigation into the tragedy was prevented by the terms of the Bush administration's Victim's Compensation Fund, which used US taxpayer money to pay an average of $1.8 million to each of the 9/11 victim families willing to sign an agreement not to sue, and thus force disclosure of the extensive negligence and security breaches that led to the tragic 9/11 events.
What did the choices made by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks achieve? The Taliban returned to Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden was given not only one war - he had been seeking with America since 1996 in order to drain its economy - but two of them!
What was the result of all this over-the-top spending? It took 10 years and a Democratic administration to take care of bin Laden after the Bush administration blew the opportunity in Tora-Bora in December 2001. Iraq still has a strongman government; only now the current version is Shia instead of Sunni, and they are developing an alliance with Iran. Most of their oil is now sold to China instead.
All these non-accomplishments in both wars came at the price of nearly 7,000 US Service Personnel dead. In Iraq, there were somewhere between 120,000 to 1,000,000 dead and more than 3 million newly minted orphans since 2003.
As the Vice-President of Iraq asked, rhetorically, in the opening days of the Iraq war, 'What is George Bush trying to do, create an entire generation of terrorists?'
Some still want believe that George W. Bush 'kept us safe'.
What planet have these seceded to - Delusionus?
As a result of the Iraq war 2003-2011 and its mismanagement, many benefited and got rich during the Bush administration years.
As Dr. Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments noted on our 'War on Terror', "Being on the wrong side of cost imposition is not a characteristic of strategic competence". Staying on the wrong side has even higher costs. The Iraq War 2003 has been a clear demonstration of much that is wrong with the neo-conservative foreign policy.
If we fail to learn from such mistakes, it is likely our $1.2 trillion/year military will become increasingly vulnerable to the asymmetric defenses of hegemons. China, our nearest military competitor with a $140 billion/year defense budget, chooses to put most of its money into developing its economy, and plans to deal with our aggressive $6 billion super carriers using relatively inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Combining this position with our increasingly hollowed out economy - 'free trade' they call it, having no historical memory that the same thing doomed the British Empire a hundred years ago - and the replay of another Iraq-type Middle-Eastern scenario (as Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper demonstrated during Operation Millennium Challenge) is the sort of thing that brings down a great power.
Can the Iraq War teach us anything so we can prevent similar blunders from happening again?
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars appears to be headed toward about $4-$5 trillion in total expenditures once all is said and done, if we include to the $1.41 trillion spent to date the equivalent interest payments on the massive amounts borrowed and supplemented to the deficit by the Bush administration, and the 50-60 years of Afghan/Iraq's 2.8 million veterans reaching a projected 40% permanent disability levels.
This is slightly higher than the cost range for World War II and a very far cry from the $4-$5 billion incurred by the Afghan field operations in Oct-Dec 2001. If the Bush administration had not passed on the opportunities presented to eliminate Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri just a few months after September 11, the war would had been brought to swift conclusion with the decimation of al-Qaeda.
This fact becomes more inexcusable considering the little cost of ordering commercial airline cockpit doors to be locked in flight, which would cost much less than ordering private jet flights for a select few cabinet officials because of the 'enhanced threat assessment involving airplanes' the summer of 2001. Instead, the Bush administration chose to ignore the multiple of warnings that came from Counter-terrorist Departments, CIA, FBI and the intelligence of other countries. Yet, select government officials would fly with only private jets!
Such a little step of applying commercial airline cockpit doors - appropriate in light of the circumstances - would have saved the lives of the nearly 3,000 killed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A serious investigation into the tragedy was prevented by the terms of the Bush administration's Victim's Compensation Fund, which used US taxpayer money to pay an average of $1.8 million to each of the 9/11 victim families willing to sign an agreement not to sue, and thus force disclosure of the extensive negligence and security breaches that led to the tragic 9/11 events.
What did the choices made by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks achieve? The Taliban returned to Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden was given not only one war - he had been seeking with America since 1996 in order to drain its economy - but two of them!
What was the result of all this over-the-top spending? It took 10 years and a Democratic administration to take care of bin Laden after the Bush administration blew the opportunity in Tora-Bora in December 2001. Iraq still has a strongman government; only now the current version is Shia instead of Sunni, and they are developing an alliance with Iran. Most of their oil is now sold to China instead.
All these non-accomplishments in both wars came at the price of nearly 7,000 US Service Personnel dead. In Iraq, there were somewhere between 120,000 to 1,000,000 dead and more than 3 million newly minted orphans since 2003.
As the Vice-President of Iraq asked, rhetorically, in the opening days of the Iraq war, 'What is George Bush trying to do, create an entire generation of terrorists?'
Some still want believe that George W. Bush 'kept us safe'.
What planet have these seceded to - Delusionus?
As a result of the Iraq war 2003-2011 and its mismanagement, many benefited and got rich during the Bush administration years.
As Dr. Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments noted on our 'War on Terror', "Being on the wrong side of cost imposition is not a characteristic of strategic competence". Staying on the wrong side has even higher costs. The Iraq War 2003 has been a clear demonstration of much that is wrong with the neo-conservative foreign policy.
If we fail to learn from such mistakes, it is likely our $1.2 trillion/year military will become increasingly vulnerable to the asymmetric defenses of hegemons. China, our nearest military competitor with a $140 billion/year defense budget, chooses to put most of its money into developing its economy, and plans to deal with our aggressive $6 billion super carriers using relatively inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Combining this position with our increasingly hollowed out economy - 'free trade' they call it, having no historical memory that the same thing doomed the British Empire a hundred years ago - and the replay of another Iraq-type Middle-Eastern scenario (as Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper demonstrated during Operation Millennium Challenge) is the sort of thing that brings down a great power.
Can the Iraq War teach us anything so we can prevent similar blunders from happening again?
About the Author:
A best selling book on the Iraq war, "Iraq War 2003: What Really Happened Behind the Political Scenes" by Charles Edmund Coyote of the political blog www.TheCoyoteReport.com, brings together all the findings from the Iraq-Iran War & the weapons sold to Saddam to the intelligence warnings before 9/11 & the escape of Osama bin Laden in 2001.
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